Sunday, 4 September 2011

La Laiterie de La Reine Marie Antoinette a Rambouillet

In 1783, the château became the private property of king Louis XVI, who bought it from his cousin the duc de Penthièvre as an extension of his hunting grounds. Queen Marie-Antoinette, who accompanied her husband on a visit in November 1783, is said to have exclaimed: "Comment pourrais-je vivre dans cette gothique crapaudière!" (How could I live in such a gothic toadhouse!) However, to induce his wife to like his new acquisition, Louis XVI commissioned in great secret the construction of the renowned Laiterie de la Reine, (the Queen's dairy) , where the buckets were of Sèvres porcelain, painted and grained to imitate wood, and the presiding nymph was a marble Amalthea, with the goat that nurtured Jupiter, sculpted by Pierre Julien. A little salon was attached to the dairy itself, with chairs supplied by Georges Jacob in 1787 that had straight, tapering stop-fluted legs
Bol Sein
de la Laiterie
de Rambouillet

notes:
The "Laiterie de Rambouillet", a Royal dairy farm in the town of Rambouillet, just outside of Paris, was built by King Louis XVI in 1787 as the Queen's dairy, a "pastoral playground" for Queen Marie-Antoinette and her entourage to entertain themselves with country delights.

This two-part tasting bowl, commissioned from Sèvres by the Crown specifically for the farm, was designed for the Queen to partake of the farm's fresh milk and is said to be fashioned from a cast of her own breast. The artists adorned the tripod with the head and hoofs of a goat, the Queen's favorite animal. In 2004, Sèvres produced these two special bowls directly from its original moulds. An 18th Century original resides in the museum at the Sèvres manufactory.

Sèvres was founded by Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson in 1756, later known as the Marquise de Pompadour, the official mistress of King Louis XV. Widely known as a patron of the arts and literature, this powerful woman planned the building of the Petit Trianon Palace at Versailles and the École Militaire, as well as the porcelain manufactory at Sèvres.